18 November 2014
A new safari with
a new starting point as I picked up the guests at Sabi River Sun Resort. We
entered the park through Phabeni Gate and started our drive down Doispane. It
started off rather quiet, with some scattered impalas hanging around. We then
got a herd of impalas with the newborn babies all resting together like in a
nursery. We came across a white rhino in the distance and an elephant was
feeding in a drainage line. These were the first of their kind we saw on this
tour, so we looked at them through binoculars and enjoyed seeing them. Little
did we know that by the end of today we drove by their relatives that were
standing close to the road as later today we were engulfed in sightings of
white rhino and elephants.
A small dazzle
of zebra was standing near the edge of road but didn’t dare cross while we were
looking so we continued. We turned onto S4 and then took a right onto River road
where except for more impalas we didn't see any mammals. We were however
entertained by cape glossy starlings, lilac breasted rollers, yellow-billed and
red-billed hornbills as well as a crowned hornbill.
Back onto Paul
Kruger road we were contemplating making a detour down Watergat when Curtis
called us saying he was watching lions sleep down by Lake Panic. So we took a
drive down there and joined him. Six lions were lying peacefully not far from
the road. Three large males were nicely visible as well as a big cat lying on
her back with all 4 paws in the air. Two others were lying half hidden between
bushes.
While watching
one of the males actually sat up and started washing himself. He did quite a
bad job as he forgot most of his body, but then suddenly got up and started
washing one of its brothers. His brother then returned the favor and washed his
face. Then they cuddled a bit to strengthen their bond and that was it. Within
5 minutes all activity was over and we were once again watching lions sleep. It
was our cue to go on to the Skukuza Golfclub for a hearty breakfast.
After breakfast
we set off again and once again arrived at the lions. Taking another picture we
could play the game "spot 5 difference" as not much had changed in
the more than an hour since we had left the sighting. One of the males had
rolled over from its left onto its right side and was now lying with his back
towards us. We are still looking for the other four differences...
We drove down
the rest of Kruger Road and Napi towards the S114 seeing our first giraffe and
warthog of the day. A bateleur was preening itself in a nearby tree. Down the
S114 started our spree of lots of elephants. At first we saw a couple of
elephants hiding in the bush, but they kept on coming closer as we stayed put.
Then out of the bush more and more elephants appeared and suddenly we were
engulfed by crossing elephants front and back. Mums were relaxed and let their
little babies walk straight past our car. Youngsters with their mums a bit
further away were more hesitant but in the end all elephants followed their
leader across without problems. It was a great sighting and we were in luck as
it happened twice more today!
Before we
arrived at Afsaal via Biyamiti Loop and H2-2 for our lunch break we also encountered
multiple wildebeest, warthogs, plenty giraffes, dung beetles digging around in
poo and bushbuck on the Afsaal parking lot.
Then we
continued our first day drive up the H3 and Napi and here once again we saw
plenty of elephant herds and some lone bulls as well. It was getting hot now so
many of the elephants were going to the water to drink and shower. Also lots of
small groups of white rhino were grazing along the route. Some were lying in
the mud, others were walking around in two colours as they had just left their
mud bath but missed a spot. At Kwaggapan we actually saw a herd of elephants
drinking on one side, a giraffe grazing on the other side. On Napi we saw our
first buffalo. Poor guy was all alone. We also saw our first common grey
duikers running away and a zebra crossing. At Shithave Dam a herd of buffalo
just walked away from drinking as well as a herd of elephants in the distance.
Just before Numbi we saw another two buffalo sleeping, one using the other as a
pillow, which looked quite cute.
It was a long
but successful day when we checked-in at Nkambeni Safari Camp.
Tomorrow will
be another day!
19 November 2014
Today was
already our last day of this quickie safari, but as the guest stayed in
Hazyview, we could get quite some game drive time today :). Our first sighting for
today was three big bull elephants that were hanging out on Camp Road, not far
from Nkambeni Safari Camp. We could see the roofs of the tents of Nkambeni in
the background. We then turned onto Numbi tar for sightings of impala, a common
grey duiker, kudus and a crossing herd of waterbuck. While the waterbucks were
crossing a 100m onwards at the same time a herd of elephants was crossing so we
had a double herd in our pictures. Both herds disappeared fairly quickly into
the dense bush after crossing. And speaking of herds, a little further down the
road we came across a big herd of buffalos as well. Might have been the same
ones we saw yesterday at Shithave Dam.
Down Napi tar
we noticed plenty of elephant bulls feeding, but no herds this time. A
red-crested korhaan did a fake display to impress a female. He flew up high,
but instead of pulling in his wings and plummet back to earth he had second
thoughts and left his wings wide open. No plummet, he glided back down. Well,
we weren't impressed at all, let alone a female korhaan!
It was a quiet
until Transport Dam, when talking about mammals. We came across some more birds
though, like black-bellied bustard, white-fronted bee eaters, plenty
fork-tailed drongos and many others. At Transport Dam we encountered a couple
of giraffes feeding next to the road. Not sure who was watching who at this
sighting, as the giraffes were all staring back at us. We also saw some zebras,
and at Transport Dam itself a fish eagle, Egyptian geese, african jacana,
hippos sleeping, blacksmith lapwings and a red-billed hornbill that took
begging for food to a whole new level: he sat on the wing mirror of another car
where the people in it were having a cup of coffee!!
We followed a
tip about lions sleeping on Watergat. Well, when we showed up we were quite
disappointed. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but after our sighting yesterday, these
two males sleeping hiding in between the bushes about 100m away just weren't as
impressive as the ones we saw yesterday about 5 meters away. But lions will be
lions, they sleep anywhere and all the time, and these guys seemed out of this
world, so no chance they would get up.
We continued
our drive watching baboons pass by, a klipspringer ruminating and two white
rhinos very close to road (they came so close they almost nudged the car as
they forgot we were standing there watching them!), when we got a tip off about
some other lions. We thought they would be "flatcats" as much as the
other two, but went to check it out anyways. Well, this time we were not
disappointed: 8 lions (four lionesses and four young ones) were lying next to
Kwaggapan. But there were elephants close by, so they were half sitting up and
paying rapid attention to what those two bulls were up to. However the bulls already
had some water to drink and a shower on the way and were not interested in
stopping at Kwaggapan. But it got a bit warm now that the sun had come out, so
one by one the females got up anyways to lie down in the shade. Of course the
cubs followed their mums. So we ended up having an awesome sighting of 8 lions walking
by and they came quite close to the road too. One female actually seemed like
she wanted to cross, but upon looking at all the cars on the road in front of
her (and people hanging out of it), she had second thoughts and walked to a
drainage pipe in which they hid away from the sun as well as all the people. We
waited a bit longer when everyone had already left to see if they would come
out again, but no such luck. We did get a great sighting already anyways, so we
turned the car around and continued our drive.
We drove in
the direction of Skukuza via the S112-S114 route. Here we just missed a baby
impala being born by minutes. The little thing was still wet and the mum was
licking it dry while it was trying to stand up. Mum didn't help much as her
licking pushed it over a couple of times when it was almost standing on its
weak legs. But it persisted and after a couple of more tries it stood and tried
a few futile steps towards mum's teats. But mum was still cleaning it off so
kept turning around to lick it. We watched in awe when the persistent baby
impala finally got hold of a teat and had its first sips of milk. It was so
adorable, we actually watched for almost half an hour at an impalas first baby
steps. Then we decided to give mum some privacy again and continued on our way.
We saw
warthogs with impalas and vervet monkeys, black-headed orioles, lilac breasted
rollers, an african hoopoe, and plenty more impalas before we finally had our
break at Skukuza. We had been on the road so long we made it an early lunch
break instead of a quick coffee stop. We then proceeded to take a loop around
the river. Just after we set off we saw a couple of banded mongoose running
along side the road and a large flock of marabou storks flying over. A female
bushbuck was feeding in a drainage line and we saw a crocodile sunbathing while
still lying in the water at low level bridge over the Sabie River. On Marula
tar the white backed vulture strand was fully occupied as plenty of vultures
had taken the liberty of taking a bath and were now drying their wings, while a
stray marabou stork joined them. On the way we saw bushbucks, impalas, 5 ground
hornbills on the way towards high level bridge, hippos sleeping at high level
bridge waters, and then stumbled upon our third lions sighting of today on
Ellooff. Three females were lying in the shade, and guess what.... they were
sleeping! We took some more photos of sleeping lions, but these also had no
incline of getting up as well so we left the sighting.
More vervet
monkeys, baboons, plenty impalas, kudu bull, and a leopard tortoise we saw on
the way to Doispane, while on Doispane itself we saw more giraffes, more zebras
and elephant bulls,. Then it was the end of the safari for Helmut and Jo-Anne,
as we exited Phabeni Gate. I hope they enjoyed their safari as much as I did,
and maybe we will see you back one day!
More coming
soon!!
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